The Adobe AIR File API

The idea behind Adobe AIR is to allow developers to use their existing Adobe Flash, Adobe Flex, Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), and JavaScript skills to move their applications from the Web browser onto the desktop. The ActionScript Virtual Machine (AVM) embedded in AIR makes this move possible, because it functions similar to the Java virtual machine (JVM). When users have the AVM, they can then run applications that have been compiled with the amxmlc compiler. AIR applications are installed like any other desktop application‚Äîthrough an installer. This installer even checks to see if the user has the runtime installed and, if not, prompts the user to install it.

In making this move to the desktop, AIR applications are granted privileges that are not available to their Web-based counterparts. One such privilege is access to the local file system...